Immortals After Dark is a series that I’ve loved for a long time. I started out reading the books back in 2010. I don’t think I was even listening to audiobooks at that time (or wasn’t listening a lot, anyway). I quickly fell in love with this series. Once I picked up the audiobooks for IAD, I fell even further. Robert Petkoff is amazing at narrating this series. He does a great job with the accents, women, snark, sex scenes, everything. For some reason, he was not the narrator of this book. It was done by two people (can’t remember who). I never tried them. I have no idea how good of a job they did or didn’t do. However, when I saw that Robert Petkoff was narrating this updated copy of The Warlord Wants Forever, I squeed with joy.
As I said, I read this book back in 2010. As I understand it, Kresley Cole has gone back through this story and cleaned it up and included it in the Blood Red Kiss Anthology with Gena Showalter and Larissa Ione. I have no idea of what changes were made. It has been too long since I read the original. I know I liked it in the original and I like it now. I will say that the ability to listen to it now with the narrator for the rest of the series, not to mention a favorite of mine, has made it a much better story for me. Yes, I think Robert Petkoff really adds that much to the story.
Now, onto the actual story. LOL. If you not familiar with this series, it features many different types of immortals; witches, Valkyrie, vampires (two groups, one who drinks blood from people and others who do not take directly from the vein, so don’t get the excessive bloodlust of the first group), werewolves and more. This story is about the non-bloodlust (or good) vamps and a Valkyrie. Cole’s Valkyrie might be one of my favorite supernatural creatures in literature. They are so much fun and very original. They each have three parents, Woden and Freya, and the woman who gives birth to her. They will take some traits from their birth mother along with their god and goddess parents. The feed off lightning and live in a sorority type house. They love gaming and shiny things. Oh, and they LOVE to kill vampires. Can you see where this is going?
Myst the Coveted has been captured by the Hoard (bad vampires). She was being used as bait so that her and her sisters could kill Hoard Vampires. When Nikolai Wroth, a Forbearer (good vampires) finds her, he is immediately intrigued. She does not immediately kill him, because she knew of him when he was still human and had some respect from him from that time. That doesn’t mean it was love at first sight (it never is in a Kresley Cole book). Myst is embarrassed that she is attracted to a vampire. He doesn’t really want a woman who is so independent. But things between to eventually work out.
While this isn’t even near the top of my favorite books in this series. I really enjoyed going back and revisiting time with Myst and Nikolai. It makes me want to start the series over and relisten to all of them.
Before he’d come, she’s been powerless here. She could handle weapons as well as most of her kind, but a sword and bow were not her strengths.
Her preferred weapon was men.
She manipulated them, played with them, made them believe she lived for them alone—in order to have them do her bidding. That was her m.o.
She scooped up her clothes, marched to his door, and yanked it open, then snapped her fingers for a guard. Nikolai merely watched like a bystander.
“Pss, minion. I need these laundered. Very little starch. Don’t just stand there gawking, or you’ll anger my good frenemy General Wroth. We’re like this.” She twined two fingers together.
Once she’d foisted her laundry on the guard, she closed the door and dramatically leaned back against it—as if to say, You can’t get away from me now. Then she glided over to him.
“Not that I believe actual vampires are here,” Regin said, “but if they were, they should know that New Orleans is our turf.” She tossed her blade up, caught the point in her claw then flicked it up once more.
“Show we ask them to rumble? Or most mash?” Nïx asked as she braided her waist-length black hair. Even sporting the old-fashioned hairstyle and an often confused glance—she saw the future more clearly than the present—Nïx still looked like a supermodel.
“We can always send Mysty the Vampire Layer to battle them,” Nïx said thoughtfully. “Oh, wait—she’d run off with them.”
Regin added, “Or used her famed tongue assault to flay their skin—as they line up to sacrifice themselves.:
“Har-de-har-har,” Myst mumbled. She’d been razzed about this nonstop since the episode at Oblack. And she deserved it. She might as well have been caught freebasing with the ghost of Bundy.
Narration
Robert Petkoff did an amazing job with the narration of this book. Nikolai Wroth has an amazing Elbonian accent (I thought it was Russian, but there is a comment in this story that it is Elbonian, not that I would know the difference.). Petkoff did a great job with that accent (he does wonderful Scottish too, which appears in the book following this one. *swoon* ). I also love his voice for ‘ol Nucking Futs Nïx (the name for her because all of her visions have made her crazy).. She is my favorite character, so it is very important that she have a good voice (not to mention that she is in every book in this series). If you haven’t tried Robert Petkoff yet, I highly recommend him. I’ve listened to some of his suspense/thriller books.
**I like to thank the publisher for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.